Where's That Smile?
by WarGoddesses
Summary: This is a lil piece that takes place between Endless Dream and the beginning of Tainted Dream. If you haven't read them, this won't make sense. Don't read this unless you've read at LEAST chapter 3 of Tainted Dream.


Author's Notes: This was a project for school… Had to write me a nice lil short story. ^^ This takes place between the end of Endless Dream and the beginning of Tainted Dream – BIG time spoilers. Do not read this until you have read at LEAST chapter three of Tainted Dream, "I Fought Against Myself".  
  
So, please R&R… that's always nice. ^^  
  
~*~*~*~*~  
  
  
  
"So, this is the day that we die, huh?"  
  
"Yes… This is the day that we die together."  
  
Those were the words that her memory had been playing over and over since she stepped onto the jet way. Like a merciless broken record, she heard those words over and over. Maybe she was just clinging to her last memory of Musha? Or maybe her mind kept replaying it because her heart would not accept the truth of what she had become. From this day forward, Tensei Jiaino was dead.  
  
She stared at her reflection in her bathroom mirror. It was small, but perhaps that was all for the better. Whenever she saw her reflection, she felt as if she was looking at a ghost. Yes, that's what Tensei Jiaino was – a ghost. Long blonde hair, uneven and messy, having gone neglected for far too long, deep brown eyes that were once full of life now held nothing. No, not sadness or despair, they held nothing.  
  
Experimentally, Tensei curled her lips into an artificial smile, only to replace her impassive expression right away. She used to know how to smile, despite the desperate circumstances that she had lived with, but now, even her smile haunted her like the ghost that she had become.  
  
The woman just shook her head and allowed the oxygen to leave her lungs – had she been holding it? She dipped her head into the sink and turned on the water, allowing it to soak her hair. Silently, expressionlessly, she dried her hair and looked in the mirror once more. It had turned dark from the water. She was one step closer.  
  
Her hands groped across the counter until they found a small box. She examined it for a moment, unsure of what to make of the picture on the front - a smiling woman, with gorgeous copper-red hair. She wanted to smile like that, she wanted to look like that; she wanted to be this woman.  
  
It took her a few minutes to figure out exactly how to mix the chemicals provided in the box. She had read the directions carefully, as if a simple mistake would result in tragedy. Open, pour, shake – it was simple. She lifted the bottled concoction up to her eye level and examined it for a moment. It was a reddish goop, sitting lifeless in the small bottle. This mixture of strange substances would give birth to a new self, and she would finally be happy, right?  
  
She waited not a moment longer before pulling on the protective gloves and squeezing a liberal amount into her doused hair, then threw the bottle into the wastebasket and began to work her fingers through the goop, through her hair.  
  
She watched herself as she massaged her head as a myriad of emotions and memories assaulted her. She did not cry, though. She would not cry. She would forsake these memories and dispose of them forever.  
  
The box instructed her to leave it in for twenty minutes – she didn't think that she could last that long, but she had to. So, for twenty minutes, she watched herself, gaze never leaving the reflection of her dead eyes.  
  
How much had these eyes seen? How much pain? How much suffering? Yet, how much joy? No! No joy… she would forget it all. She would shed herself of Tensei be reborn as a new woman, a happy woman, a complete woman.  
  
Twenty minutes had passed and Tensei took a deep breath. This was it. Would the color hold? Would the new woman shine through? She bent down once more and turned on the faucet, wincing slightly as she felt the water touch her head. She hadn't turned it on too hot, so why did it burn?  
  
Tensei closed her eyes, but she could still picture the water as it was washed down the drain, swirling down the hole and away from her life forever. In the water, she could see her past, her memories flowing down with the dye. Musha… she could almost see Musha in the water, and one other person… no, not him. She felt nothing for him, what was he doing in her memories? No matter. Soon, he would be gone too, and she would never let him back… Never.  
  
She could not only see, but feel all of her memories disappear. There was only one thing left to shed – herself. She could picture an image of her own face, no, Tensei's face in the water, expressionless as it swirled down the drain. Once that image was gone, the water turned clear, and she knew that the process was almost over.  
  
She shut off the water once more, wrapped a towel around her hair and reached right for the blow dryer. As she let the hot air attack her hair, she did not watch the mirror, no, her eyes were fixed on the box and its picture of that smiling woman. Soon, she would be that woman.  
  
The wailing of the dryer stopped and Tensei paused for a moment, running her fingers through her locks. Satisfied that her hair was thoroughly dry, she lifted her face to meet the mirror. She almost didn't recognize herself, and was glad for that. Her once blonde hair was now a nice copper red. Needless to say, it did not match the box woman's shade perfectly, but it was close enough. Now, where was that smile? 


End file.
